Automotive Director Salaries

Published: 06 Jan 2017

In the automotive industry, directors hold some of the highest-ranking positions at the companies they work for. Automotive Directors can earn top salaries and enjoy additional benefits including healthcare and pension plans, but they certainly work hard for their earnings. On a day-to-day basis, automotive directors do the following:

Manage large teams of executives

Have ultimate authority in their departments

Oversee all operations within their departments

Make the final decisions about all major issues of policy

To become an automotive director, one must have many years of experience in the industry and possess many unique skills and traits. These include the following:

Excellent Communication Skills: A director must communicate with customers, clients, the board, and managers throughout the organisation. Their direction must be clear and must be able to keep channels of information open.

A Talent for Negotiating: Directors make deals and must negotiate the best terms for their companies.

Strong Analytic Skills: After analysing the available data, it is crucial for every director to possess the ability to predict developments in the marketplace accurately.

An Ability to Inspire Confidence: This is an essential trait of every great leader.

Types of Directors

Automotive Service Director

A Service Director is responsible for leading a large team of customer service representatives. She is tasked with training, advising, and overseeing technicians, advisors, and front office personnel. Professionals in this position earn a median salary of £61.5K annually in the UK, while the highest earners in the job can make as much as £88K.

Automotive Finance Director

Finance directors are responsible for developing financial strategies based upon their predictions about the market. They must provide senior leadership with the detailed financial analysis in simple terms and manage large teams of accountants and analysts. The current median salary for the position is about £71K, with those in the highest earning jobs bringing home as much as £110K, while those on the lowest end make about £42K.

Automotive Marketing Director

Marketing directors are responsible for running the advertising and marketing branch of the business. They manage large teams of copywriters, social media experts, advertising executives, and strategists to create adverts for the business. Marketing directors also play a role in determining the names and aesthetics of the vehicles their company produces. At present, marketing directors in the UK earn a median salary of £66.5K annually, with those in the highest- and lowest-earning extremes of the profession making £99K and £40K, respectively.

Automotive Sales Director

Sales Directors are tasked with ultimate responsibility for getting vehicles off the lots and into the hands of consumers. They manage large teams of sales personnel, develop and execute strategy for optimising sales both on an international level and also on the level of key individual dealerships. In the UK, the median salary for this position is about £62.5K annually, while the highest earners in the profession can make as much as £100K. On the other hand, the lowest earners in this position can make as little as £35K.

Automotive Engineering Director

The engineering director is tasked with the project of overseeing vehicle construction and manufacture. In this position, the Director has the ultimate responsibility for designing the major components of the vehicles, developing new driving technologies, pushing innovation forward, and managing large teams of engineers to complete these objectives. The engineering director is also responsible for vehicle safety. In the UK, the median salary for this position is nearly £73K, with the highest earners making up to £95K and the lowest earners bringing in about £50K.

What’s Ahead for Automotive Directors?

It seems the automotive industry is about to be reshaped by the forces of technology and what some are calling the next Industrial Revolution: digitisation. By embracing 3D printing tech, intelligent robotics, and new approaches to data management, a recent study by KPMG estimates that the UK auto industry can gain about £6.9 per year until 2035 for a net total revenue spike of some £74 billion.

While this would perhaps hurt jobs in the production side of the business, it would likely be a boon for directors who would benefit from increased profitability and efficiency in the sector. Less expensive vehicles would drive sales, potentially opening new positions for directors and allowing new companies to enter the market.

Interestingly, however, the automotive industry has mixed feeling about the potential of another technological revolution: self-driving vehicles. Some say self-driving cars would be easier to share, able to circulate continuously, and could therefore ultimately decrease overall sales. Their arrival on the market seems inevitable. So the future is somewhat uncertain for the automotive industry, though this is certainly an exciting time to be working in the fast-changing field.

If you are in search of a senior level position in automotive work, then take a browse through our latest Telegraph Automotive jobs. We have a range of director positions available, and we wish you the best of luck with your job search.